Hi Everyone

EU situation is in fact little different to the USA or Australian situation. USA is still living with the 80,000 lb (36300 kg) federal limit because they cannot get all states to agree to an increase. And in Australia after many years we still haven’t got road friendly suspension vehicle limits universal across all states, mainly because one state won’t cooperate (though of course Australia has done much better than most federations over the past 30 years).

It appears to me the basic problem is that the media at large portrays large heavy trucks in a negative sense, both because road transport does not have a great presence in the media, and because large truck crashes make “good” visual (TV) footage and so are often displayed in news. In contrast pedestrian and motorcycle crashes, while contributing much more to the road toll, make “poor” visual (TV) footage and so are almost never displayed in news. There’s no way I can think of around this situation which “allows” road transport to be portrayed badly, and allows this situation to be expanded by promoting other poor heavy vehicle images.